With nearly 303 million users per month, LinkedIn can be a great tool to open up a new set of avenues for you to attract clients. From finding like-minded professionals to reaching out to client prospects, this mammoth of a platform can help your freelance career to take a huge take-off.
In the guide, we’ll discuss various LinkedIn profile tips that you can leverage to attract clients as a freelancer. Here are a few tips to help you attract clients:
- Optimize your profile
Most professionals on LinkedIn refrain from connecting with individuals with ill-formatted profiles. So, if your profile lies in this category, it is likely that you are harming your chances of attracting clients.
An optimized profile helps you create the right impression and attract valuable connections to your profile.
As a freelancer, you need to make sure you include all your skills that effectively showcase your services and update each section of the profile to create a concrete impact.
Here is how you can optimize your profile:
- Add a professional picture and cover photo: LinkedIn boasts itself as a platform strictly for professionals, hence you must include a professional-looking photograph. It can be one of your format pictures, or you can use the logo of your freelance business.
- Include a headline: If your headline isn’t optimized for professionals to know who you are, they will not click on your profile. Within 120 characters, write a stellar headline that introduces you in terms of your services and expertise. Further, include industry-related keywords. For instance, for a sales professional, “sales strategy” can be of prior importance.
- Build your network
With a plethora of users, you would think that building a solid network base will be easy. However, when it comes to growing your network, you should not go by the number game.
You may have 1000+ connections but it is of no use if they are not relevant to your interests. So, to make your network organized, you need to update the functional industry in your profile. This will help you receive better connections suggestions. Further, make your requests personal by “adding a note”.
Allow LinkedIn to access your email/contact list for adding connections you may already know. Additionally, engage with the added professionals before pitching your services.
- Using groups for marketing
To bring potential clients to your profile, you need to join groups and engage in the discussions. Find groups that are relevant to your interests and make sure you are active on them.
You may search for relevant groups by searching for keywords related to your industry. For instance, if you are a freelance digital marketer, you may search for groups associated with “search engine optimization”.
Here, if you have added connections relevant to your industry, you are bound to find them in these groups. Ask your connections to introduce you to the group members, and if it is a former client who is doing the introduction, it will be incredibly helpful for attracting new clients.
- Draft a pitch
Sooner or later, you will have to pitch professionals on LinkedIn. But, make sure you are not sending cold pitches to people who are not interested in your services. For instance, as a freelancer digital marketer, make sure you are sending pitches to a sociologist.
Make your pitch restricted to the people who have shown interest in such services. Let’s say you come across a professional in one of the groups you joined, reaching out to such prospects will improve the results of your pitches.
Further, do not use the same pitch for all the prospects. Research on people’s profiles and include pointers to showcase a personal touch.
Do not forget to follow-up if you do not receive a response. However, if the person has been inactive on LinkedIn, you can move the conversation out of LinkedIn by sending an email to these prospects. If you are unable to find emails you may use email identifying tools for the same purpose.
- Stay active
Staying active by commenting, sharing, updating statuses regularly can be effective in reaching a wider audience. However, you can further expand your reach by utilizing the feature pulse where LinkedIn allows you to publish your content.
You can optimize the content as per the targeted keywords and improve your visibility as a result.
Let’s say your articles received 5-10k views, such a high number must bring a few potential clients to your profile.
